A hero's welcome met Severin
and his Argonauts in Vani.
Presentedwith traditional
dress and a silver dagger,he
playedJason to Medea, actress
Nino Katsitadze,while a choir
serenaded.Medea, who fled
Colchis with Jason and the
fleece, is a blood-stainedfigure
in Greek legend. When Jason
laterbetrayed her to marry
anotherwoman, she killed
theirsons and his bride. But
Georgians-whotreasurethe
Golden Fleece myth as part of
their heritage-holdher as a
beloved princess,self-exiled to
help the man she loved.
Jason could remove the fleece, shimmering
in fiery splendor-the prize for which the
Argonauts had "dared greatly and suffered
misery on the cruel sea." Pursued by her
wrathful father's ships, she fled with Jason
to his home in Greece.
The richness in gold of later Greek colo
nies here gave credence to the legend of the
Golden Fleece, an archaeologist explained.
After a heavy rain, golden objects have been
picked up from the ground at ancient Vani,
gold probably from the mountainous Svane
tia region of northern Georgia.
There three gold gatherers demonstrated
the age-old method, reported by the Greek
geographer Strabo. Sheepskins pegged out
on boards were sunk in streambeds to trap
gold particles in the wool (previous pages).
In Mestia, Svanetia's chief town, I saw
hundreds of objects an archaeological team
had recovered from ancient burials. Ram
figurines, cast in bronze, caught my eye. In
western Georgia a ram cult endured from
the middle Bronze Age until our own era.
Legend relates that a Mycenaean royal
child escaped death in Greece by flying
away on the back of a golden ram. Reaching
Colchis, Prince Phrixus sacrificed the ram
and gave its golden fleece to Colchis's King
Aeetes, who hung it on an oak tree in a
sacred grove.
Mycenaeans at Iolcus knew of the Cauca
sus ram cult and regarded its people as rela
tives. Scholars show similarities in early
420
Greek and Georgian myths-not only Jason
but Prometheus, punished by Zeus for giv
ing fire to man.
The most thrilling corroboration came on
our last day. Atop a mound near the mouth
of the Rioni, I looked down on the base of a
small building surrounded by a stockade
and moat. A temple or religious site, archae
ologists suggest, from cult objects-stylized
bull's horns-found here.
No ram cult. Then I remembered. Before
he could win the Golden Fleece, Jason had
been put to an ordeal by King Aeetes. He
had to yoke a pair of fire-breathing bulls and
plow a field. A bull cult? Perhaps.
But what about the serpent that guarded
the Golden Fleece? This site and others had
yielded tiles and clay artifacts scratched
with snake symbols. Snakes were protector
figures in Georgian homes.
I felt the last piece of the puzzle had fallen
into place. Georgia's history has gold collect
ing with sheepskins, a ram cult, even a folk
tale of a mountain cave where a golden ram
is tethered beside a golden treasure by a
golden chain. Coastal archaeology shows
bull worship and a stockaded temple-pos
sibly the sacred grove from which Jason
stole the fleece protected by a snake.
No one has firmly identified the site of
Aea, capital of King Aeetes, and sites await
excavation in the Rioni delta. But every ele
ment of Jason's tale is there. And our Argo
showed that the voyage could be made. O
NationalGeographic, September 1985